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It starts when you’re 13.
Well, it started earlier than that. Far earlier. It was like a seed in your heart had been planted long ago and was only now beginning to grow after working the roots in deep, locking themselves in when you didn’t even realize that they had began to grow in the first place.
You can’t describe it. You don’t have the words. You were never good with words. It was easier to bite your tongue and hold it in because it’s trouble when you let anything slide off your tongue. You weren’t sure how to put it, couldn’t quite place your finger on what it was and where it came from. So you didn’t and you kept going.
And it begins to show when you’re 13, when you see a flash of red that isn’t the same shade as the red you see behind your eyelids every day when you’re angry and fighting off the rest of the world and most of the kids in your grade. It begins when blue meets green and in turn meets red. It begins when you sock him in the eye for an offhanded comment that he didn’t mean and it begins when you have a bloody nose and a busted lip and a spot in detention reserved for you both.
He calls you stupid, you say he is an idiot. But then he’s bringing you to the gas station to give you some bandaids and buy a slurpee for you both to share. “We’re getting red,” he tells you. “Because I won.” You snort, but you don’t argue. You wouldn’t say either of you were winners; it wasn’t really much of a fight before it was broken up.
You both sit on the curb just outside the gas station and sip on the slurpee. You don’t talk a lot but it’s okay because he likes to fill up the silence with his own words. You’re never too sure what he’s talking about, but you listen because you are enraptured by him and you’re not sure if it’s because he actually had a good punch or because he talks like he knows about the stars and the gods who put them there and he has the kind of dreams you wish you could or maybe it’s because he dulls the feeling in your chest whenever he looks at you. You don’t know, you don’t care, because it is only the beginning and you’re just 13.
It begins in the gas station parking lot.
It begins with the slurpee.
It begins with Tord.
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When you’re 14, the feeling is ever present. You are young and your friends are about as wacky as the glue you used to use for the art projects you did in middle school. You find a dullness in whatever it is you feel when you’re with them. You find a particular dullness whenever Tord is with you, anywhere near you, because you two fight but it’s always made up for with shitty bandaids on your cheeks and ice cream that he bought for you because you’re too poor to afford anything on your own accord.
It lingers. You know it always will; something inside tells you that much. But it’s dulled, like the blunt end of safety scissors. It’s dulled when he looks at you while you take your first drag of a cigarette he conned off his dad. You cough into your fist until you’re doubled over on the curb, and you think a piece of your lung came out but Tord is laughing and that makes up for it.
“You barely even got a breath in!” he tells you, clapping a hand on you back as you hold up your middle finger in response because your throat is too busy choking on toxicity that didn’t belong there.
“It’s my first time, like you’re any better!” you accuse him, and he snatches the cigarette from you and take a drag so proudly only to end up like you with an arm curled around his stomach. Your laughter mixes with his coughing and it’s not a lot but it’s enough for you and you figure that’s what matters.
He hands you back the cigarette and once his coughing is finished and his eyes aren’t watering too much he offers to get a slurpee for you both to share. “Red or blue?” you ask, because it’s fun to coordinate and those are your colors. You try and switch between them every time you stop at the gas station, because it’s only right and those were the better flavors anyway.
“Both,” he says after a moment, and he gives you a wide grin that you can’t help but give back to him because it’s really all you can offer but Tord doesn’t mind it and goes inside while you try the nicotine for a second time. The slurpee tastes just as bad.
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It’s when you’re 15 that the first ache comes. You’re 15 and you’re on the overpass with the highway below your feet. You don’t contemplate anything. You don’t want to. The point of being there is to not think, to not feel, to just exist under a starless sky because you’re not sure who put those up there but whoever they were, they weren’t doing it for you.
So you sit under a dark sky with the only light coming from a shitty streetlight just down the way on either side of you. Cars zoom by beneath your feet and you watch them go. They are variables in this life, only moving, coming and going and never really staying but you don’t blame them. You wish you could be a variable too.
Maybe, you think, if you were a variable, you wouldn’t have this inside of you. Your heart wouldn’t feel so hard and empty and it’s such a heavy sadness that weighs you down so much you have a hard time leaving bed in the morning. You think, sometimes, that you’ll never move again, but Tord always comes to your window on the right side because there’s not too much of a mess there and that window is less creaky than the left. You could move on, drift in and out like the cars beneath your feet and you won’t have to worry because you know that when you go it won’t matter. It just won’t. You feel like you're halfway there; your parents don’t seem to care when you come and go. You feel pretty certain that they hardly even notice that you're gone.
You’d call it foreboding. You think that’s the right word. It feels like there’s another shoe just out of sight that is waiting to drop on you. Or maybe it’s dread. You’re not sure. What would you be dreading? Your future? Yourself? What you’ll be or won’t be to someone? You’re not sure, really. But it’s there, and it lingers as a constant in your shitty equation of a life and it sucks because you were never good at math or science enough to figure this shit out. All you know is that it is a constant and you wish you were the variable.
You wonder, watching the 28th blue car pass beneath you and disappear, if there is a good constant in your life. Something you’re happy for, something that’s as lingering as the thing in your heart. You think about Edd, realize he’s about as spotty as the back of a gecko you saw in class once; think about Matt and he’s the same. That just left Tord.
Tord, a flash of red in your blue. When you mingled you made this light purple color that you always thought was nice and sometimes you like to think that he does, too. You think about every time you both have snuck out at night because your folks didn’t care and he was smart enough to get in and out of his house with absolute ease. You think about the cigarettes he’s taken and the ones you’ve smoked and the ones you both shared because it was the last one and you wanted to make them last. You think about all the slurpees he’s bought you and every time he takes a drink of one the color lasts on his tongue for ages. You think of when he sits so close to you that you can feel warmth radiating through the old red hoodie he wears. You sit on the overpass watching variables go by and find that your constant is a Norwegian boy who smiles with too much teeth and likes to lie his way in and out of trouble.
You think about how your mom never trusts him, says he's doing something to you that isn't right by the way of God. Your father mentions something about not having a faggot child in the house and you promise it's not like that. You swear it's not. But you think about him more than you are ever willing to admit to even yourself. You fear it might be true; he is stirring up something inside of you that maybe God did or did not intend to happen and it feels like butterflies beating themselves dead against your stomach. Maybe that's why the worst of it is dulled when you see him; butterflies are too busy taking up the space that dead couldn't fill. It feels better. So you think about him again, about how he let you borrow his hoodie once and then said that red was a good look for you. You think about how warm it was and how red your face must have been after. You think about him laughing at you while you throw a pillow at him and it's so natural and nice and you think you see stars when you're with him, only with him.
You think about him, and then sure enough, he’s standing there like you personally called him to you, slurpee in his hand while the other is shoved in his pocket. “You weren't at the gas station, so I thought I’d find you here,” he comments, making his way to sit beside you in that way where he’s too close but it’s still not enough. “I got blue this time.” He offers you the drink and you lean over to take your sip. You wonder why you didn’t call him sooner, but it always seems like he knows how to find you anyway.
You don’t say anything for awhile. He doesn’t make you, either. You think about how Tord is a constant again, always there, always unwavering, always Tord. It makes you wonder if you are a constant to him, too. You wonder if he can see this thing inside of you and if he knows what it does, how it makes you feel, how you look when you are certain that no one is looking. You wonder if this thing is the only constant he can see about you. You wonder if you are a variable to him.
You cry.
He lets you. His arm is around you and pulling you to him and he’s mentally counting the number of cars that pass under your feet while you’re crying into his shoulder about you’re not sure what and wondering what you even mean besides the God-awful feeling of dread in your heart.
“It’s okay, you know,” Tord says into the dark, watching the cars. He isn’t even looking at you; you didn’t want him to. “That you’re crying. It’s okay.” He finally turns to look at you, with your puffy eyes and your flushed cheeks and runny nose and you look disgusting but he smiles at you like you’re the prettiest flower in the field. “I’m not going anywhere. Whatever it is that might be wrong, I’ll be here for you, no matter what. You have me.”
His hand covers yours and you feel your eyes welling with tears again as your fingers lace together and you can’t tell if your cheeks are flushed from crying or if it was from the bolt of electricity that ran through your system when he touched you like that. You stare at him with wide eyes and he just keeps smiling this smile that has made your heart turn at least three times now. You’re not sure how to feel about it. You are pretty sure those butterflies are back again.
You decide you like it and squeeze his fingers between yours, sniffle and wipe your nose on your sleeve before giving his shoulder a shove but fuck you’re not letting go of that hand. “Loser,” you tell him.
“Only for you.”
You learn two days later that he’s leaving for Norway. You call him a liar over the pay phone on the corner of Aspen and 6th while he makes promises about you both that you like to listen to anyway because it sounds better than the ringing in your head.
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Junior year is spent making up for lost time in the back of Tord’s car with fumbling hands and little promises that he whispers to you in the dark because that’s where you both are the safest. His touch brings about electricity that stops your heart and keeps you going at the same time. He doesn't mind your skin and bones look and you appreciate the small bit of muscle he has. He is warm and you are not but he fixes it and you both even each other out. It numbs the dread and foreboding and you feel so light like this.
He calls you beautiful while the moon casts shadows across your face and suddenly blue skin turns pink and he thinks it's a good color for you. Then he makes purple blotches that look ugly at first but red and blue do make violet and you find the color suits you better than pink ever could. You think his teeth are a little too sharp but you dare not to comment out of fear he’ll stop. You never want Tord to stop. He doesn’t, but he always pauses to marvel at you or to make sure that you’re okay and the only words you know are ‘yes’ and his name. At the time it’s all you want to know.
It hurts at first. The first couple of times, it kind of hurts and it feels a little uncomfortable because the only times you’ve ever been this up close and personal with someone you’ve been the giver and never the receiver and you realize when he’s deep inside of you with his hands making hard bruises against your hip bones that you never enjoyed it not because God didn't like it, but because you don’t like to give. He’s hard and brutal but you can take it with ease and he still kisses you like you’re the most delicate thing he’s ever touched. And you feel like it; you feel like you might shatter at any given moment but he holds you tight and keeps you grounded and then you’re hit with something amazing every time, something that makes you see the stars that were never hung in the sky for you but he’s the one showing you the most beautiful constellations and he looks so proud of himself that you think maybe he hung them there for you after all.
You apologize constantly for the stains in his seats but Tord laughs it off and wears them like they’re badges of honor.
Junior year is spent with holding hands when no one can see them except for the one time someone did and then you got beaten up in the back of the parking lot on your way home. He swears revenge, speaks angrily in Norwegian while he’s cleaning your wounds and getting you ice and a blue slurpee. You two still hold your silly gas station tradition. You’re glad it hasn’t changed.
It’s a parallel scene when Tord comes back with a couple of bruises and a split lip and you watch as he spits blood into a rag and you're almost certain that's blood under his nails, and for a moment horror breaches the ever-constant dread but Tord promises you won’t be hurt anymore. He cups your face and promises that no one will hurt you again and he kisses your tears away but you wonder what’s wrong with you to make you love a man like Tord and you wonder what’s wrong with him to make him love a scum stain like you.
“Don’t do that again,” you beg him, holding a hand over his. “Don’t hurt people because of me, because of us. Please don’t, Tord.”
You hiccup and he looks so upset that his attempt to defend what you have together has made you this way. Too many emotions flash across his features and finally he nods and kisses you and you want to cringe away because you know what he’s done but you’re so desperate for him, desperate for the kind of love he gives you that you let him.
“I won’t,” he promises over and over and he kisses you until you calm down and become just something sad in his arms and you think about how pathetic you are and say nothing else. He brings you inside and lets you wear his t shirt and you can only think about the dread coming back tenfold because you caused this. You caused someone to get hurt because you were lousy and careless with how you touch him in public. You blame yourself and nothing would change it. Maybe your mother is right and Tord is changing something in you, something God doesn't like, doesn't approve of, and because of your mistakes, of your decisions, someone had to pay.
This is the heaviest you have ever felt.
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Senior year is weird and you pick up a bad drinking habit that worries even Tord. There are too many negative emotions at once and the dread is heavier still. You drink yourself stupid when you’re with him and you drink yourself worse when you’re alone. “You’re going to kill yourself,” Tord tells you. You don’t think you care too much. You might feel a little guilty because you’ll be leaving Edd and Matt and Tord behind, but at least you won’t get to feel so heavy anymore. God can forgive you for this, right? You're trying to make this right; make you right.
“Then so be it,” you tell him, and you take another drink because the burn means you’re okay. You’re on your way to being numb and just forgetting for one more day that you are a waste of time and space and the dread that makes your heart so heavy that your chest aches.
“Thomas, damn it! Stop this!”
You cringe. You hate when he uses your full name. Reminds you of your parents. “Why? S’the on’y thing tha makes me fee’ okay,” you slur.
“And what about me? Don’t I make you feel okay?”
You pause. “Yes,” you answer him. “You do. Buh you’ll see tha m’not… m’not worth it. I go’ this… thing. In me. You’ll see it one day.” You pause again. “I’m unclean; ‘s wha’ my mom would say. Unclean. God had made me in His supposed image and here I am destroyin’ it, tainting it… I’mma waste ‘a space, y’know? Ain’t worth it. Bad image.”
“Unclean -- Tom, what are you on about?”
“My mom, y'know, very religious -- dad too. Talk all the time ‘bout how I'm disappointing God, by bein’ this way, with you. Say I’mma waste of His image and shit. ‘S weird, y’know, havin’ parents who hate who you are. I mean, I know I’mma waste but… jus’sucks.”
“You’re drunk, Tom. Not a waste. Stop it.”
“No you stop!” You start to yell but you’re not sure why. Are you angry? You don’t think so. But why are you yelling? “You don’ know what it's like! They get mad a’ me, ‘cuz’a you… th-they think tha’ you tainted me and made me this way, that I’m unclean ‘cause of what we do an’ how I feel, and that it’s bad. That we are bad. But…” Your voice quiets again. You look at the floor. “You jus’... you always make me so ‘appy and I feel okay with you and you jus’ always make me feel like… like m’worth something, worth more than my parents or God ‘as ever made me feel an’ for a li’l bit I believe it but…” You sniffle. When did you start crying? You wipe your eye with your sleeve. “But you’ll just leave. When you see it. When you see how I really am.” You stop, scrunch your nose. You never talk about the religion in your house; you never liked to abide by it by the way that it had been shoved down your throat but if your parents did anything it was instill the fear of God in you and that your worth was entirely based around if He deemed you worthy or not, and thus, if they deemed you worthy or not. You had a feeling you didn't pass that test.
Tord stares at you incredulously. “Tainted you? They hate me because of something you feel, something that is natural between us?”
“‘S not natural, not in God’s eyes. ‘S wha’ my mom says anyway. Says we’re unnatu’al and that you're the Devil. ‘Cuz’a your horns.” You reach up to play with his aforementioned bit of hair to show him what you mean, but he takes your hands and sets them down in your lap again. “But I… I think that they see m’not good enough? They wan’ed somethin’ good but they got a failure instead. A faggot of a failure who’s not good for anythin’.” You scrunch your nose, hearing your dad’s tone whenever he used that word. “If m’not worthy of God’s love and ‘m not al’owed to have yours then wha’ do I get? Emptiness, s’what. I get to feel so empty insi’e ‘cause ‘m not worthy of God and m’definitely not worthy of you.” Oh, you’re crying again. Tears are running down your cheeks freely as you clench your hands in your lap. You hate that you’re such a baby but there are too many emotions in you at once. You are breaking in front of the one person you swore you’d never break in front of. “I am nothing but this… this gross feeling of dread, of nothin’, an’ you… you make me feel like m’somethin’ an’ I’m so scared you’re gon’a… gon’a leave me…” Your voice is dying and breaking again and you keep scrubbing at your eyes but the tears keep coming. “You’re all I have, please don’t leave you’re all I have…” You repeat it again; you’re not sure why. You think it's the only thing close to a prayer that you've said willingly.
You think for a moment about the awful things you have been feeling, how your chest has been so heavy and so pained and you wonder, briefly, if it has anything to do with your parents and the image that they had for you and how you apparently tarnished before you knew you had the chance. You decide that they were very much a factor and for a brief moment you hate them, hate that they have done this to you, made you feel this way. All you wanted was to be happy. Why can’t you just be happy your way? God would want that, wouldn’t He?
Tord’s arms are around you and you can’t find more words so you just cry. You cry and cry and your throat is sore and your eyes burn but you keep crying. He hushes you and your knees buckle while he holds you, while you desperately cling to the only thing you can’t let go of, can’t live without. Everything is coming out. You can’t come out. He can’t come out. Neither of you will but your feelings are not as closeted as you are when you have alcohol burning your system. It’s all coming out at once and you can’t help it anymore.
Especially when the vomit comes up.
You apologize about his shirt and hiccup on the floor of his bathroom because his parents are gone on some trip and you took advantage of the lack of supervision. He hushes you again and gets you both new clothes and you feel gutted with your feelings so out in the open like they are. You have exposed your turmoil, pulled back the curtain and now Tord can see you the same way God has: unworthy. “C-can we not.. talk about this, later?” you ask him softly. He looks pained; he wants this talk.
“Sure, we can not talk about it,” he agrees anyway, and you both curl up in bed, trash can just to the side just in case, but you are empty and hollow and you no longer have any warmth to give. You think he knows; he brings you closer and provides enough warmth to fool you into thinking maybe you are alive and full of love after all.
He talks instead about the two of you running away together. He talks about towns and people who are far away and are far more accepting of who you both are. “We can take a train,” he says. “Just go. Somewhere far away where people won’t know us. We can restart. No one has to know who we are or where we came from, and we can live in peace. Maybe have a fireplace like you always wanted. You think that would be nice?”
You nod your head because it would be nice. It would be the definition of perfect, better than the idea of Heaven that your parents try to get you to see because when you think of Paradise you think of red hoodies and mussed up hair and the way your legs tangle together when you’re close to one another. You think of too-sharp teeth and gray eyes and a wide smile that isn’t contagious to anyone but you. You think of Norwegian curses and murmured I love you’s in a different language that makes you feel butterflies and moths together in your stomach because you don’t know much but you know he means it.
You fall asleep to a promise that you both will be free one day and you’ll never have to look back again. God won't find you where you both hide away in your own Paradise.
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You wonder why your ribs have not cracked under the weight. You wonder how your chest is still intact, how your heart is still giving the impression of beating and creating a false sense of feeling alive. There are only two times you feel warm for the rest of senior year: with alcohol running through your system or Tord burning through your veins.
Graduation comes and goes, and you’re a mess of alcohol and self-loathing and even with the subtle sense of pride of graduating (after riding on Tord’s coattails for the latter half of senior year) you dread everything because what will you have to distract you from the world? From the near-overwhelming sense of dread that has made your heart so heavy its hard for you to stand or get out of bed? You will have nothing besides Tord.
You feel bad. Edd and Matt care and you know they do. You know; you can see it in the way they reach out to you, the way they look, the way they try to make you laugh the hardest of the four of them. But there is nothing like Tord that can even begin to dull the edge, unless you’re going to go on the subject of alcohol but you shouldn’t because it just makes Tord upset if you do.
It’s a problem. You can admit that. But you can’t stop; won’t is a better term for it. You don’t have a reason to. You can’t find one, no matter where you look, even if it makes you feel so filthy and vile when you’re in Tord’s presence now and you think you’re beginning to gain a tolerance because Tord seems to be the only thing that can help you anymore.
Your parents kick you out and you find someone to bum some alcohol off of at the gas station you two used to get slushies at and that’s how you stumble your way to Tord’s front door. You throw up at his feet and you think you’re crying but you can’t tell. Your mouth is trying to move and he’s asking what’s wrong and you tell him how much you love him instead. He tells you he loves you too and brings you inside and you’re clinging to him desperately because you don’t think your legs can work anymore.
“Thomas, what happened?” he asks you, and you realize he’s enunciating every word and he only does that when he repeats himself. Oh.
“T-t-they kicked m’ ou’,” you stutter. “I don’ ‘ave a ‘ome ‘nymore an’ I… I…” You, what? “I di’n’t know what else t’do…”
“Your parents kicked you out?” Tord scrunched his nose. He never did like the way your parents treated you, especially after your drunken confession about their feelings of you at the beginning of Senior year. You always insist that it was just fine, always fine, but he knew better. Tord is smart. That’s why he graduated with high honors. “Why?”
“Pro’ly don’ want a fucked up faggot son who’s an i’iot and can’t do anythin’ for himself.” You laugh, not amused but you laugh. “They always though’ you were the de’il. Figure out I was, uhh… of sneakin’ aroun’ with you. Di’nt want a gay kid. Tha’ sucks.”
He’s quiet and you fear that you have made a mistake in thinking you can come here drunk and a mess. Or maybe you said the wrong thing? You’re not sure; you hate when he’s quiet but you don’t know what to say anymore.
He gets up suddenly and your anxiety builds up in your stomach. You said something bad. You had to have. You can’t explain the reason why he’s been so quiet. “We’re leaving,” he says. You look up at him. “Let’s go. Right now. We talked about running away; let’s do it.”
He has this new light in his eyes and you love it. You love him. Your future is with this man and with the two of you being of age, you can go, do as you please anywhere you want to like you have talked about in the middle of the night. He steps in front of you and grabs your hands and you cling on to his almost desperately because he grounds you so perfectly. “We can have our future, away from here. I’ll build you a fireplace myself, if it means you’ll come with me.”
You nod, you’ve been nodding, and he’s smiling so wide before he’s kissing you, cupping your face in his hands as he holds you there before he pulls away. “We can buy tickets at the station,” he goes on. “I have cash. We can go where no one will find us, just you and me, Thomas.” You hate when he calls you that but for the first time you smile at it. You can see in the way he’s smiling, how he’s holding your hands, that this is something he’s been wanting for awhile. You’re glad you weren’t alone in fantasizing about this.
“Do you mean it?” you ask.
“I do. I want this; I want you.”
You smile wider and you agree to leave with him. He’s ecstatic; you can feel something too, beneath the tight cage of your ribs where you think your heart was meant to be all along. For the first time in your life it feels like you’re doing something right, something good. “Let’s go,” you say. He can’t move fast enough.
He packs up a suitcase full of his clothes and belongings, whatever he can fit into the trunk of the car parked in his driveway. He helps you sneak into your house through the window on the right where there’s not as much of a mess and it’s far less creaky than its counterpart, and you grab what you can while Tord helps because your hands keep fumbling and you can’t tell if it’s from the alcohol or the excitement and decide that it’s both. You slip out the same way and he speeds off into the night towards the train station while you leave the desolate town you’ve known your whole life behind; leave your parents and their disappointment in you behind; leave God and His image you tarnished behind; leave that hollowed out, dreadful feeling that has filled your heart for years longer than you deserved behind.
Tord looks to you with a small knowing grin on his lips, and you find it contagious and smile back. “Want to stop for a slurpee on our way out?” he asks. Your grin widens.
“Yeah.”
“Red or blue?”
You don’t even hesitate. “Both.”
His laugh echoes down the the highway and you find yourself feeling lighter than ever, right now, right in this moment with Tord at your side like you always hoped he would be. There is a future ahead of you now and you become one of the cars zooming past under the overpass, like the ones you’d count below your feet. You both are variables in this town but Tord is your constant and you are now his.
Maybe you’re good at this math thing after all.